Risen

10

I woke up next morning in a good mood. The morning sun lit the castle and glittered off the sea, the air smelt fresh and clean, and the waves made a soothing sound on the rocks below. Everything seemed bright and clear.

I really shouldn’t have been so happy. Anne was possessed, Variam was a prisoner, the marid was planning an apocalypse and I had maybe a day to live. But I was in a good mood all the same, and it was because of the conversations I’d had last night. I’d been carrying around an enormous amount of pent-up stress, and it had been a relief to let it out. Even getting to tell Anne that she was an idiot had made me feel better. In a weird way, it had been the most honest conversation we’d ever had.

Nothing had really changed, and all the horrible things due to happen today were still going to happen. But there’s really only so long you can keep on feeling miserable about stuff. Eventually you just have to accept that this is the new normal and that’s how things are. And I’d already decided I wasn’t going to waste my last day moping.

I got up, stretched, worked the kinks out of my muscles while enjoying the view from the window, then went downstairs to wash my hands and face in the pond. There was a new sentry outside the windmill; I chatted with him, asked if the night had been quiet (it had), then once I’d freshened up I headed for the barracks.

The barracks was busy with morning bustle. I got a few hellos as I waited in line for breakfast. Once I had a moment, I reached out through the dreamstone. November?

November’s reply came instantly. Oh, Mr Verus. I’m glad to hear from you, I was becoming a little worried.

November’s physical shell was back in our world, in a south London flat, but I could talk to him as easily as if he were right next to me. Dreamstones are handy like that. So what’s been happening with the Council?

A constant stream of rather frantic communications, November said. With the tail-end of Nimbus’s force not making it into the shadow realm and the reserves being cut off, the Council were somewhat concerned. They demanded reports, but since the mages they were demanding them from were under attack at the time, they had some trouble getting an accurate picture. Still, things apparently quieted down after the first hour, and since then they’ve been in more or less constant contact with Landis and Nimbus and their seconds for, well, the entire night as far as I can tell. I’ve never seen the Keeper net so active.

I’d got close enough to the front of the line to see that the cook – it was Jamie again – had done a fry-up. The soldier ahead of me scooped bacon, fried tomatoes and mushrooms onto his plate. The smell reminded me that I was very hungry. Active with what?

The Council’s first priority has been trying to re-establish a gate link, November said. However, the teams working overnight have confirmed that the isolation ward has, as expected, caused a divergence of various universal constants within the shadow realm.

Mm-hm. Wait a sec, I’m getting breakfast.

I loaded up my plate. My stomach growled at the smell and I headed towards the folding tables set up in the middle of the room. You were saying?

This divergence is cause for some concern.

Right. I sat down and ate a forkful of eggs and bacon. It tasted amazing. Didn’t you say that messing with these universal constants could cause us all to explode or something?

Oh no, nothing like that.

I poured myself some orange juice from a jug on the table. Landis clearly believed in treating his men well. Well, that’s good.

It would just cause your bodies to stop functioning.

I paused with the glass halfway to my lips. What?

Well, the biggest area of concern was the dielectric constant. It governs the vacuum-electric permittivity of free space, which is fundamental to biochemistry.

November? Layman’s terms please.

Ah . . . November said. Changing this constant to any significant degree would cause virtually all biological processes within the shadow realm to stop working.

Which would kill everyone.

Yes.

I see. I took a sip of orange juice. Given that I’m still talking to you, can we safely assume that this hasn’t happened?

Well, so far.

So far?

The Council teams within the shadow realm have been conducting experiments, and apparently the results have differed in such a way as to lead them to believe that the shadow realm’s physical constants are continuing to diverge from baseline at an accelerating rate.

Wonderful, I said. Any good news?

Well, so far the most pronounced changes appear to have been to the speed of light and to the gravitational constant, which should have relatively little effect at human scale, November said. And divinations suggest that the shadow realm is unlikely to become entirely uninhabitable in the near future.

I really don’t like how many qualifiers you put on that last sentence. Okay, so this makes the Council’s attempts to establish a gate a bit more urgent. How well are they doing?

Not very, November said. Standard gate spells were rather designed under the assumption that the universal constants of physics would remain, well, constant. They’re attempting to compensate but even after that they’ll still have to defeat the regular gate wards. From what I’m overhearing, I’m afraid they don’t sound very confident.

So no reinforcements and no exit strategy, I said. Just as well my expectations weren’t high. Anything else I ought to know?

I understand that the Council have authorised a battle plan, which they’ve passed to Director Nimbus. I imagine you’ll hear about it quite soon.

I’ll be in touch.

I broke the connection to see Luna weaving through the crowd. She looked as though she’d been up for a while, and walking alongside her was a Keeper called Tobias. ‘Alex,’ Luna called.

I gave her a wave. ‘Had some breakfast?’ I asked once I’d swallowed.

‘Verus,’ Tobias said agreeably as he ambled up. He was a tall, strongly built Keeper from the Order of the Shield with dark hair that he for some reason hid behind a large Stetson hat. I’d never got an explanation for the hat. ‘Briefing in twenty minutes in the ready room.’

‘I’ll be there.’

Tobias headed off on some other errand. ‘So?’ Luna said. ‘Learn anything last night?’

‘Yes, and also this morning.’ I finished my orange juice, grabbed the last three hash browns and rose. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

Once we were outside and away from eavesdroppers, I filled Luna in on my conversations with November and Anne. ‘Well, crap,’ Luna said once I was done.

‘Sums it up.’

‘I guess now we know why no one uses isolation wards.’ Luna walked for a few seconds more before shaking her head. We were out in the morning sunlight, making a circuit on the grass around the millpond, the sails of the windmill creaking overhead. ‘Well, I suppose if there’s nothing we can do about it, there’s no point worrying. Do your Elsewhere gates work?’

‘They’re blocked too,’ I said. ‘Might be able to find a way around it with enough time, but that’s not something we have a lot of. Which brings us to Anne.’

Luna nodded. ‘So is it still the same plan?’

‘Which plan?’

‘You stun Anne with that anti-jinn weapon, open up a gate and drag her into Elsewhere, get Anne’s two sides to team up and banish the jinn, then you get out of Elsewhere and back to our world.’ Luna looked at me expectantly. ‘Right?’

‘You’re . . . skipping over a lot of problems.’

‘But that’s your plan, right?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Problem one: that anti-jinn weapon is currently in Richard’s pocket. Problem two: the wards on this shadow realm are stopping me opening a gate to Elsewhere. Problem three: Anne’s two sides hate each other and refuse to work together, and problem four, I’ve no idea how banishing a jinn actually works.’

‘But that’s still your plan,’ Luna said. ‘Right?’

I sighed. ‘Yes.’

Luna shrugged. ‘Four problems doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘Problem five,’ I said. ‘Klara warned me a while ago that using the fateweaver would accelerate its spread. I think using it in Elsewhere does the same, but much faster. When I destroyed Rachel in Elsewhere, the fateweaver jumped from my elbow to my shoulder. I think it’s okay as long as I just dip in and out, but an extended battle against something like the jinn . . . I’ve got the feeling this is something I’m only going to be able to do once.’

‘Oh,’ Luna said. She glanced around; apart from a couple of sentries, we were alone out on the grassy space. ‘This was why you didn’t want to talk about this in front of the Council.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. Of course, even if I could banish the jinn, there was the issue of Anne’s split personality. But I’d been thinking back to my conversations with Dr Shirland, and it had given me some ideas.

‘What about Vari?’ Luna asked.

That problem, on the other hand, I had no answer for at all. Entering Elsewhere was the only card in my hand that I thought gave me any chance at all of banishing a jinn. If I could only do it once, then when I came to Vari I was going to do . . . what? Get him and Anne in the same place and drag them through together? Threaten Anne into ordering the jinn out of him? Knock him out and hand him over to the Council and hope their mages could un-possess him?

All of those plans sounded terrible.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted at last. We finished a circuit of the millpond and started round again.

‘Look, we need that anti-jinn weapon off Richard anyway, right?’ Luna said. ‘So we mug him first, deal with Vari second, and go after Anne last of all. Use that weapon to get rid of Vari’s jinn, and save your Elsewhere trick for Anne.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What you just described is something most mages wouldn’t be able to pull off in ten years. You’re suggesting we do it in a day.’

‘Well, a day’s what we’ve got.’

‘And there’s no guarantee this weapon is going to break Vari’s possession.’

‘Do you have any better ideas?’

‘. . . No.’

‘So that’s it then, isn’t it?’ Luna said with a shrug. ‘If this is the only way it can work, then this is the way it’ll have to work.’

I sighed. ‘You really have turned into a chance mage.’

A group of soldiers emerged from the castle, carrying crates. A mage was leading them, and to my surprise I recognised her. Her name was Lumen, a Keeper auxiliary seconded to the Order of the Star. Why was she here?

‘What are they doing?’ Luna asked.

‘No idea,’ I said with a frown. Lumen pointed the men towards the windmill, and they crossed the grass to disappear inside. I couldn’t see what was inside those crates, but from the way the men were walking it looked heavy. As we watched, more soldiers appeared from the castle, also weighed down with cargo.

The twenty minutes Tobias had given us were up. We headed for the ready room.

Landis’s ready room was packed with people. It looked as though every Keeper of the Order of the Shield who’d made it into the shadow realm was standing in a cluster on our side of the room; they were talking and drinking from mugs, looking relaxed. A few nodded to us as we entered. The air smelt of coffee.

Landis and Nimbus were leaning over a projection table, deep in conversation. Two other mages were standing nearby, Sonder and Rain. As I watched, Lumen came through the door after us and walked over to join Sonder. Last was Talisid, or an image of him. The Council mage was a translucent projection of light, hovering in one corner.

I left Luna and walked over to Talisid. ‘Hey,’ I told him.

‘Verus.’ Talisid’s voice echoed from the focus on the ground.

I couldn’t resist. I leant forward and swiped my hand through him.

Talisid’s image fuzzed and re-formed. ‘Yes, Verus, very amusing,’ Talisid said. ‘Was there something you needed?’

From behind, I could sense Luna stifling a laugh. ‘So you didn’t make it into the shadow realm,’ I said. ‘Let me guess, you were at the end of the line?’

‘I was in the rearguard, yes.’

‘That’s what you get for leading from the back.’

‘I’m glad you find this entertaining.’

Being locked out of the shadow realm meant that Talisid – and by extension the Council – would have limited influence on today’s battle. On the one hand, that made it less likely that Alma would betray me at a critical moment. On the other hand, it also meant that Nimbus had near-total authority.

I looked across the room at Nimbus. The Director of Operations of the Order of the Star was making forceful hand gestures as he spoke to Landis, who was standing with his arms folded. Nimbus and I had rarely crossed paths, but from the little I knew of him he seemed ambitious, inflexible and proud. The few times I’d watched him in action, I hadn’t been impressed. That might have come across in our conversation last night. On the other hand, the information I’d given Nimbus had been accurate. Maybe that might have raised his opinion of me?

As if sensing my thoughts, Nimbus glanced up and saw me. His eyes narrowed.

I sighed inwardly. As if I didn’t have enough problems.

‘Right, then!’ Landis called, clapping his hands. ‘Friends, mages, Keepers, lend me your ears.’ I was fairly sure Landis hadn’t slept, but he looked as energetic as ever. ‘Director Nimbus will now grace us with his plans for our day’s entertainment.’

The murmurs of conversation died away. All eyes turned to Nimbus.

Nimbus frowned, clearly not appreciating the levity. ‘The Council has spent the night gathering information and exploring options,’ he announced. ‘We now, for the first time, have a clear understanding of our enemy’s intentions. As a result, it has finally been possible to devise an effective counter-strategy.’

I glanced sideways to see that Luna had moved next to me. I reached out to her through the dreamstone.

Nimbus gestured and the projection table lit up with a three-dimensional image of the castle, sculpted in pale yellow light, a perfect scale model reaching to Nimbus’s waist. If the Council ever runs short on money, they could make a fortune selling their projection tech to Games Workshop.

‘Our forces currently control the western, north-western and south-eastern sections of the castle,’ Nimbus said. Sections of the castle lit up in blue as he spoke. ‘Drakh’s forces are confined to the north-east, while the jinn have been driven back to the central keep and to the north.’

Driven back? Luna asked.

They withdrew, I said. But ‘driven back’ is how he’s reporting it to the Council.

‘Through analysis of the data collected during the battle last night, and through divinations performed by the Council, we have been able to decipher the enemy’s plans,’ Nimbus said. ‘The marid intends to perform a large-scale ritual which will bring the shadow realm as a whole closer to the dimension from which jinn are summoned. Our attack has forced the marid to accelerate these plans, and it set them in motion last night.’

Nimbus gestured towards the image of the castle. When nothing happened, he frowned at Sonder.

Sonder started. ‘Sorry.’ Four small white diamonds appeared within the corners of the keep, glittering against the dark building.

‘Mage Sonder,’ Nimbus said.

‘Yes,’ Sonder said. ‘Right.’ He stepped forward, fumbling a little. ‘So, as you remember from the briefing, the wards over the shadow realm are all anchored at the— in the keep. This includes both the realm-wide gate wards that prevent external access, and the smaller but more powerful wards over the keep itself that protect it from intra-realm gating or scrying, as well as from physical and magical attack. The ritual uses that existing ward structure for leverage, allowing An— the marid to affect the shadow realm as a whole.’

‘Which means,’ Nimbus said, ‘that the ward system is the key. Bring it down, and at one stroke we both stop the marid’s plan and open up access to and from the shadow realm.’

Nimbus paused for effect. The Keepers from the Order of the Shield looked back at him.

‘Director,’ Tobias said with a nod. ‘We were given to understand that the reason we couldn’t gate out of here was due to the isolation ward.’

‘It’s both,’ Sonder said. ‘The teams at the War Rooms say they can open up a gate through the isolation ward, or through the gate wards. It’s having to break through both at once that’s too much for them.’

There were a couple of whispers from the crowd, but no further comments. They didn’t look enthusiastic. What are they upset about? Luna asked.

They’re wondering if he’s about to order them to do a frontal assault on that keep.

When no one spoke, Nimbus cleared his throat. ‘There is an additional problem.’ He pointed to the north-east corner of the castle, marked by a splotch of red. ‘Scouting reports indicate that Drakh’s forces have fortified themselves within this area. Our divinations indicate that he does not intend to launch an attack in the short to medium term, but as long as he holds this territory, he represents a threat we cannot ignore. Though his force is inferior to ours, should we attack the keep, we would be vulnerable to him attacking our flank or rear.’

‘While this absolutely is a problem to address,’ Landis said, ‘I think everyone is exceedingly interested in learning what our plan is for dealing with that keep.’

‘I was coming to that,’ Nimbus said. ‘In the absence of external fire support, we will be deploying an accumulator.’

That got people’s attention. ‘We brought one of those?’ a Keeper asked.

‘I had Compass pack one,’ Landis said cheerfully.

Nimbus shot Landis a look. ‘The Council has emphasised that this does not represent a change in established doctrine. However, given the circumstances . . .’

What’s an accumulator? Luna asked.

Magical siege weapon, I said. It’s like a giant battery that can draw in ambient magical energy. The range is enormous – miles. Then once you’re ready, you get a mage to channel that energy in a directed attack. I’m not surprised Landis had to smuggle one in, the Council hates them.

Why?

They’re banned under international treaties. Also, they’re not actually very useful because of the warmup time.

‘What about the warmup time?’ a Keeper asked.

‘Well, we’ve taken measurements,’ Sonder said, ‘and actually, it turns out that conditions here are ideal for an accumulator. Between the isolation ward, the jinn ritual and the confined nature of the shadow realm, the ambient magical index is gigantic.’

‘So how long are we talking?’

‘Ah, based on our projections, to achieve minimum power level to break the keep’s wards . . . twelve minutes.’

The Keeper frowned but didn’t speak.

Is that slow? Luna asked.

No, it’s actually really fast for an accumulator, I said. The problem is that the charge-up process is really obvious. Once that thing starts building up power, literally every mage in this shadow realm is going to know where it is and what it’s doing. And twelve minutes is more than enough time for Anne’s jinn to fly or gate over there and destroy everyone and everything in the area in about eight different ways. This is why no one uses accumulators. They’re useless in a police action because they’re overkill, and they’re useless in a military action because in the time it takes to charge up your shot the people you’re aiming at can either attack you first or just gate somewhere else.

Landis seemed to think it was worth bringing one.

Yeah, trust him to find the one time a giant explosive siege weapon would actually be useful.

‘Seventeen to eighteen minutes if we’re being safe,’ Sonder was saying.

‘That enough to blow up the keep?’ Tobias asked.

‘Not the whole keep,’ Sonder said. ‘But we don’t need to. Those four points on the projection are the anchor points for the ritual. Destroying any one of them will cause the entire effect to collapse, which will cause a chain reaction that will destroy the wards on the shadow realm as a whole.’

‘Excellent!’ Landis said. ‘Now I think we should address the marid in the room, as it were. What are we going to do when our mutual acquaintance notices what we’re doing and takes exception?’

‘This brings us to our plan of attack,’ Nimbus said. ‘Both Drakh’s forces and the jinn have the potential to threaten the accumulator as soon as it begins to gather a measurable level of power. It is therefore necessary to engage both enemy forces before the accumulator can be activated.’ He gestured and a blue arrow appeared in the castle’s north-east. ‘Captain Rain?’

Rain stepped forward. Tall and dark-skinned, he had a calm, measured way of speaking. He’d been my and Caldera’s boss back when I’d been working in the Keepers. ‘Our force will be acting as a sieging unit in this operation.’ He gestured and the blue arrow moved towards the red blotch of Richard’s forces, then moved to encircle it. ‘We’ll establish a perimeter around Drakh’s forces and set up wards and an interdiction field. No one gets in, no one gets out.’ He glanced around at the Keepers and at me. ‘I know several of you have recent combat experience against Drakh’s cabal. Once we’re done here, I’d appreciate anything you can tell me.’

‘Sieging the keep itself, however, is not an option,’ Nimbus said. ‘The perimeter is too large and its wards would defeat any kind of interdiction field. This is where you men come in. Captain Landis, you will take your force and attack the building upon the stack off the island’s northern face.’

The castle was built upon a tall rocky island, with cliffs dropping into the sea. To the island’s north was a stack – a pillar of rock – separated from the castle by a stone bridge. Upon the stack was a huge forbidding-looking structure made up out of the same yellowish stone as the rest of the castle. Ji-yeong had called it the tombs.

‘According to our intelligence, the building upon that stack contains the spawning infrastructure for the shadow constructs that we’ve been fighting since we got here,’ Nimbus said. ‘Destroying their regeneration source will eliminate the shadows and thus remove half of the marid’s army.’ Nimbus looked around. ‘It is an attack the marid cannot afford to ignore, and it will respond accordingly.’

‘Respond as in, in person?’ a Keeper asked.

‘No, that shouldn’t be possible,’ Sonder said. He pointed, and a small glowing white symbol appeared at the centre of the keep in between the four diamonds. ‘She— I mean, the marid was able to attack us last night because the ritual hadn’t been started. Now that it’s been set in motion, it needs constant supervision.’

‘As such, we expect the marid to deploy its jinn against the attack to the north,’ Nimbus said. ‘Divinations have confirmed that we can expect our attack to be answered by ifrit-possessed mages as well as jann.’ He looked at Landis. ‘Your task will be to press the attack sufficiently to draw in the ifrit, and either destroy them or keep them engaged so that they cannot redeploy. Once this has been accomplished, you will send the signal to the accumulator team. The code word is “trident”.’ Blue arrows stabbed against the red on the northern island. Nimbus pointed at the map and a thin beam of light extended from one of the castle towers. It pierced through the keep and touched the nearest of the four diamonds, and with a flash the whole corner of the keep disappeared. Nimbus stepped back. ‘Any questions?’

‘So who has the honour of using the focus?’ Landis asked.

Nimbus nodded to one side. ‘Mage Lumen will use the accumulator’s reserves to launch a directed-energy attack.’

Directed-energy attack? Luna asked.

Lumen’s a light mage, I said. She was a small woman with neat brown hair in a pageboy cut, and didn’t look especially happy to be here. She’ll launch an attack spell and the accumulator will supercharge it. Basically it’ll be a giant laser cannon. Hang on a sec. I held up a hand. ‘Director Nimbus?’

Nimbus looked at me, thin-lipped. ‘Yes, Verus?’

Several other Keepers stopped talking and turned to watch. ‘What happens when the accumulator gets attacked?’ I asked.

‘The purpose of the diversionary attack on the northern island is to ensure that the marid has no available forces to spare.’

‘And what if it does?’

‘An attack on the accumulator is not a concern,’ Nimbus said stiffly.

The Keepers watching Nimbus didn’t look away. Their expressions clearly indicated that they were waiting for a better answer.

Nimbus gave an irritated sigh. ‘Sonder?’

‘We’re using an experimental apparatus to transfer the energy flow from the accumulator through a specially modified gateway,’ Sonder said. ‘I’ll be monitoring the situation at the accumulator through a video link. As soon as it looks as though the accumulator’s under threat, I’ll give Lumen the signal to fire. So anyone watching will sense the energy build-up in the accumulator, but they won’t know where the attack’s going to come from until it’s too late. We won’t activate the focus until it’s time to fire, and the video link will be non-magical, so there’ll be nothing visible on magesight to warn them.’

‘Understood?’ Nimbus said, paused for only a second, then nodded. ‘Good. Auxiliaries Sonder and Lumen and Captain Rain will remain here to answer any further questions. Captain Landis, I need to discuss assignments of your men.’